Jean Lambert, United Kingdom, MEP: 1999-2019


MEP Jean LambertJean Lambert in the plenary debate "Winter plan for asylum seekers" in Strasbourg, November 2017 © European Union 2017 - European Parliament

Political groups

1999-2019: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance

National parties

1999-2019: Green Party of England and Wales 

Biography

Jean Denise Lambert was born in Orsett, Essex. She received a bachelor's degree in modern languages in 1971 from University College, Cardiff, before obtaining a postgraduate certificate in education from St Pauls' College, Cheltenham (now the University of Gloucestershire) and gaining an ADB (Ed.) in 1975. She periodically worked as a secondary school teacher in Waltham Forest, East London, at different times between 1972 to 1999. She also holds a Professional Development Certificate, which she achieved in 1998. 

After joining the Ecology Party in 1977 (later to become the Green Party of England and Wales), Lambert held numerous party positions. She was Co-Chair of the Party Council (1982–85), Principal Speaker (1992–93 and 1998–99), Chair of the Party Executive (1993–94), Representative to the Federation of European Green Parties (1987–89 and 1998–99) and Political Liaison to the Green Group in the European Parliament (1989–92). She was the party's spokesperson on Migration. 

Lambert was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999 from the London Region and was re-elected in 2004, 2009 and 2014. She was Vice-President of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group of MEPs from 2002 to 2007. As a Member of the European Parliament, she was a member or substitute of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, the Subcommittee on Human Rights, and the Committee on Petitions, and Delegations to South Asia, Afghanistan, Japan and India. She chaired the Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia from 2009 to 2019. She was Vice-President of the Intergroup on Ageing, the Intergroup on Fighting against Poverty, the Children's Rights Intergroup and the Anti-racism and Diversity Intergroup, and a member of the Intergroup on Disability and the LGBTI Intergroup, among others. She was Rapporteur on the Parliament's Asylum Report, the Regulation setting up the European Asylum Office (now Agency), and on the revision of the Regulation on the Co-ordination of Social Security. Additionally, she was the spokesperson on Asylum and Refugees for the Greens/European Free Alliance Group. Lambert also engaged in EU Election Observation missions and was Chief Observer for the 2018 elections in Sierra Leone.

MEP Jean LambertSubcommittee on Human Rights – Exchange of views on Human Rights in Iran in the context of the UPR. L-R: Jean Lambert, Peter Jacob, Jacob Harbo © European Union 2012 – European Parliament

On a national level, Lambert is an active campaigner for the London Living Wage. 

Outside her work in the Green Party, Lambert has been involved with numerous NGOs. From 1991 to 2007, she was a Council Member of Charter 88, a democratic reform NGO, and has been a Council member of Liberty, which defends and promotes human rights, at various times since 2006. She has been Vice-President of the Waltham Forest Race Equality Council from 1999. She is a patron of the Dalit Solidarity Campaign UK. She was also on the Advisory Boards of the Work-Life Institute at London Metropolitan University. 

Lambert was named Justice and Human Rights MEP of the Year 2005, the first year these awards were held. 

Lambert has written numerous reports and articles on democracy and human rights, sustainable development, anti-discrimination, social inclusion, minority rights, trade union and workers' issues and asylum and refugee rights. Her report on Refugees and the Environment (2002) was one of the first done by a politician on the subject. She wrote 'No Change? No Chance', a book on Green politics in 1996. In 2006, she made the film 'EU4U! Your voice can make a difference!', highlighting the ways young people can make a difference within EU structures. 

For more information on her time as an MEP, click here

Selected plenary speeches

In 2011, Lambert was rapporteur for the Directive on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refugees as beneficiaries of international protection and the content of the protection granted. In this capacity, she addressed the plenary session on 26 October 2011:

In 2013, Lambert was rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs' own-initiative report 'Impact of the crisis on access to care for vulnerable groups'. This report aimed to identify how issues arising from austerity measures impacted vulnerable groups in society, groups where needs were becoming more evident and new, and potentially vulnerable groups developing as a result of changing conditions, such as personal indebtedness. It was the first time the European Parliament called on the Commission to propose a directive on carers’ leave, which has since entered into force.

While Chair of the European Parliament's Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia, Lambert addressed the issue of the garment sector in the wake of the 2014 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in Parliament's plenary. Her work on this initiative was part of the build-up to the subsequent Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

On 2 May 2018, Jean Lambert spoke at the plenary session on the protection of children in the context of migration:

Jean Lambert spent much of her time as an MEP working on the subject of co-ordinating social security systems, and in the speech below from April 2019, addresses the issue in Parliament's plenary:

 

What's in the Archives

The documents cover the whole period of Jean Lambert as a member (1999-2019) and deal with the main topics where she engaged with, most notably in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia. These files demonstrate the working methods of the MEP in collecting data on subjects of interest. The documents also illustrate the Member’s reflections, through the numerous handwritten notes that are contained within. The files include legislative documents, press and documents from other bodies.

The first deposit of MEP Lambert to the Historical Archives is particularly comprehensive and rich, covering all the activities of the MEP since her first term of office in the European Parliament, including her relations with her party and political group. An additional deposit from her constituency was transferred in July 2019 and the processing will start next year. With this addition, this is likely to form one of the most comprehensive archives of a deputy kept to date by the Historical Archives of the European Parliament.